Michael Giacchino's scores for the Star Trek movies really didn't do much for me and when I first read that he was to be the composer for R1, I wasn't too excited, but I must say that Giacchino's piece for the most emotional scene in the movie really is beautiful and effective, like most of his score for the movie.

I've watched all the extras and was underwhelmed by them. The intros to the characters didn't tell me anything that watching the movies several times hadn't already. The others were dull. I was expecting the deaths of the Rogue One team prior to seeing the movie and yet the extras told me it was meant to shock the fans. Maybe LFL forgot that none of Rogue One appear in ANH and Leia had the plans transmitted to her which had always made me believe in the worst for R1 team.

I took a look at a few spots in the film yesterday, probably a good twenty minutes of it. A few observations:

1) it was not as bad as I thought it was initially. It still wasn't good, and, since I was buzzing past the boring spots, that may have had a significant effect on my perception. That said,

2) The Jyn Erso/Galen Erso story is as flat as a Euclidean plane. It does not work.

3) The effects look bad. Was this film made on the cheap? That would explain it. I am not talking about robo-Tarkin and robo-Leia here, either. I'm talking about the ships, the Death Star--they all look more like plastic model kits than the plastic model kits used in ANH did, while at the same time seeming less substantial than most CGI spacecraft in cinema.

4) There is a serious wardrobe inconsistency regarding Director Neckcrink's cape: the cape he wears confronting Erso and his engineering cohorts on Mudhole V (or whichever one of the murky locales from the film that was) is not the same cape he wears in the rest of the film. What, he has a special, go-to-confrontations-with-traitors cape? (Also, it still looks like it was made from a bedsheet.)

I've watched all the extras and was underwhelmed by them. The intros to the characters didn't tell me anything that watching the movies several times hadn't already. The others were dull.

Yes, the extras were poor and frankly disappointing.

thepepgal wrote: I was expecting the deaths of the Rogue One team prior to seeing the movie and yet the extras told me it was meant to shock the fans. Maybe LFL forgot that none of Rogue One appear in ANH and Leia had the plans transmitted to her which had always made me believe in the worst for R1 team.

I certainly wasn't expecting it and there are many reasons as to why they wouldn't have had shown up in ANH. When I first watched the movie in theater, I had an inkling that some would die, but it wasn't until K-2SO "died" that I really began to understand where it was heading. I was actually surprised that Disney allowed some of the creative choices.

Lord Tesla wrote:buzzing past the boring spots

Hmm... I wasn't aware that there were 'boring spots' in this remarkable Star Wars movie!

Hmm... I wasn't aware that there were 'boring spots' in this remarkable Star Wars movie!

Oh, yes, they're there. Allow me to give you some telltales that you can watch for: Any time you see Jyn Erso; anytime you hear the phrase, "I am one with the Force and the Force is with me"; any frame you see that falls before time index 20:00 (rough approximation); any time you hear Jyn Erso. Boring. All boring. And that is not an exhaustive list.

And there's another thing that bugs me: Why does the Imperial Archive, or whatever the hell that thing was on Club Imp, have an open-air terminal for data uploads? With a very exposed and precarious "antenna orientation" control station, no less? That's just...stupid. Ditto for the whole hard drive jukebox arrangement. So much wasted energy and complexity, to say nothing of inefficiency, in a big, mechanical storage system for electronic records. It might make sense if it were some long lost cache of ancient data, or a collection of legacy devices, but not for the latest and greatest design from Muppet--er, Imperial Labs, making bigger bangs for more tyrannical tomorrows. Nope. Doesn't fly.

I like the score though it was lacking in some areas. Especially the title scene. When "Rogue One" appeared on the screen the music was too similar IMO to some of the music in cheesy low budget 80's sci-fi like Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. However, the rest of the music was quite good, however lacking in other areas. But after getting past the "This doesn't sound like John Williams-Star Wars" and accepting the music for what it was, a side story, I quite liked a lot of it, especially the way he mixed in some of Williams' traditional SW themes into parts of the new score.

I liked the alien sound of the Jedha music. When you are firsdt introduced to Jedha, when you first encounter Saw's rebels meeting the defector, when you first glimpse the kyber temple under the hovering Star Destroyer as the newly arrived Jinn and Cassian begin to observe it, I caught a very familiar sound in my ears and memory. I could be wrong in my memory, and I don'[t have the old music playing now in order to compare it, but that music in those scenes was so familiar. Maybe it was coincidental, maybe it was an intended homage, or maybe I'm incorrect. But either way it heavily reminded me of some of the music in the the original 1968 Planet of the Apes--particularly the music during scenes of the Forbidden Zone and the first sights of the gorilla hunting party pursuing the humans. Does anyone have or remember that music to confirm or debunk my hazy memory of it?

Crikey. I forgot what my old signature was about.

Back again I am, here from the days of old, the tides so bold...September, 1998 oh my how the years have rolled.

Michael Giacchino's scores for the Star Trek movies really didn't do much for me and when I first read that he was to be the composer for R1, I wasn't too excited, but I must say that Giacchino's piece for the most emotional scene in the movie really is beautiful and effective, like most of his score for the movie.

I bought the score as soon as I could after seeing the movie. Don't need to be spoiled just upon viewing track listings, thank you very much, TPM.
Anyway, it took a little bit for it grow on me, but I like it a lot. Sure, not as strong as Williams, but considering he only had about a month to work on it after the original composer dropped out, I dare say he did Giacchino did a fantastic job.
Oh, and I really dig his work on the Star Trek flick too.

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

In consideration of both Rogue One and A New Hope chronologically, regardless of the 40 years between films and any differences between the writers and directors of the two:

In ANH Tarkin was convinced that the rebels could not have gotten a hold of the DS plans, perhaps due to his destruction of the Scarif base and despite Vader's assumption that the plans had been accessed by Leia's ship, but destroying the base was a bold move and a costly one. Scarrif was important enough to the empire to be protected by an energy shield and guarded by a garrison of troopers, a hell of a lot of TIE fighters, and two Star Destroyers. That's not a mere toll both manned by a few guards on a border between two cities. Destroying an entire planet such as Alderaan which apparently meant little to nothing to the empire was one thing, but an actual imperial base with as much importance to the empire as Scarif is a whole differengt ball game.

At the end of ANH Tarkin was convinced that even if the rebels had gotten the plans, that they would not have found an exploitable weakness. "Evacuate in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances." But yet, on an immediate whim and without further thought or second guessing, he destroyed an entire imperial base and took hundreds if not thousands of imperial lives, as well as cost the empire he served many billions of dollars,if not trillions. What of that invaluable imperial information that was stored in that vital archive?

My question is, wouldn't he have to answer to the emperor and justify his actions? Perhaps he reported to Palpatine that it was the rebels who destroyed the base?

Another point is this: Giving a man the power to destroy worlds was a costly move, as evidenced by his haste in destroying an important asset of the empire itself. Perhaps this is why, as I said in my Vader thread from the former GS message board, the emperor had Darth Vader aboard the Death Star to keep an eye on Tarkin. A man willing and able to wipe out an entire vital imperial base; how much more would he have been willing, and able, to destroy the emperor's palace or Coruscant itself without Vader there to ensure that the Grand Moff could not be a threat to the emperor himself?

Crikey. I forgot what my old signature was about.

Back again I am, here from the days of old, the tides so bold...September, 1998 oh my how the years have rolled.

I took a look at a few spots in the film yesterday, probably a good twenty minutes of it. A few observations:

1) it was not as bad as I thought it was initially. It still wasn't good, and, since I was buzzing past the boring spots, that may have had a significant effect on my perception.

Be careful...you're on a slippery slope of nearly paying this film a compliment....

That said,

Never-mind.

2) The Jyn Erso/Galen Erso story is as flat as a Euclidean plane. It does not work.

I may bust your balls about you negativity, but I'll never accuse you of not bringing it. You back up all of your critiques with why you feel a certain way. Not with this, though. Why does it not work for you?

3) The effects look bad. Was this film made on the cheap? That would explain it. I am not talking about robo-Tarkin and robo-Leia here, either. I'm talking about the ships, the Death Star--they all look more like plastic model kits than the plastic model kits used in ANH did, while at the same time seeming less substantial than most CGI spacecraft in cinema.

Huh. Absolutely disagree with this. I thought ILM did another bang-up job. Tarkin and Leia have their own issues, but you didn't really criticize those, though.

4) There is a serious wardrobe inconsistency regarding Director Neckcrink's cape: the cape he wears confronting Erso and his engineering cohorts on Mudhole V (or whichever one of the murky locales from the film that was) is not the same cape he wears in the rest of the film. What, he has a special, go-to-confrontations-with-traitors cape? (Also, it still looks like it was made from a bedsheet.)

Ok, and we finally agree on something! Didn't really notice the inconsistency, but I sure did notice how it looked like a rumpled bedsheet. I have a theory!
Ok, so we see throughout the film, particularly when meeting with Tarkin, that Krennic has something of an issue with pride. He wants to be considered on the same level with a Tarkin or a Vader or other higher-ups, and he feels as though he's getting overlooked and passed by. I mean, he absolutely is. So, maybe the whole cape thing is a lousy attempt by him to make himself literally look more important than others view him. I mean, we've seen 4 films with the Empire and aside from Vader, this is the first Imperial who wore a cape. Yeah, I think it wasn't even uniform issued. He just thinks it make himself look far more regal/important/etc.

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

I like the score though it was lacking in some areas. Especially the title scene. When "Rogue One" appeared on the screen the music was too similar IMO to some of the music in cheesy low budget 80's sci-fi like Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. However, the rest of the music was quite good, however lacking in other areas. But after getting past the "This doesn't sound like John Williams-Star Wars" and accepting the music for what it was, a side story, I quite liked a lot of it, especially the way he mixed in some of Williams' traditional SW themes into parts of the new score.

I liked the alien sound of the Jedha music. When you are firsdt introduced to Jedha, when you first encounter Saw's rebels meeting the defector, when you first glimpse the kyber temple under the hovering Star Destroyer as the newly arrived Jinn and Cassian begin to observe it, I caught a very familiar sound in my ears and memory. I could be wrong in my memory, and I don'[t have the old music playing now in order to compare it, but that music in those scenes was so familiar. Maybe it was coincidental, maybe it was an intended homage, or maybe I'm incorrect. But either way it heavily reminded me of some of the music in the the original 1968 Planet of the Apes--particularly the music during scenes of the Forbidden Zone and the first sights of the gorilla hunting party pursuing the humans. Does anyone have or remember that music to confirm or debunk my hazy memory of it?

Can't address the Planet of the Apes stuff, but I too really dig this score. No, it's not John Williams, but that's perfectly ok. I mentioned earlier, I think in this thread, how I was looking forward to hearing a different composer for Star Wars. It's not perfect, but it's damned good, and he did it all on a tighter than usual deadline (4 1/2 weeks), all while knowing that he was the only other composer to do Star Wars after a living legend. Imagine how much better it would have been had he had the usual time-frame with to work?

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

My question is, wouldn't he have to answer to the emperor and justify his actions? Perhaps he reported to Palpatine that it was the rebels who destroyed the base?

Another point is this: Giving a man the power to destroy worlds was a costly move, as evidenced by his haste in destroying an important asset of the empire itself. Perhaps this is why, as I said in my Vader thread from the former GS message board, the emperor had Darth Vader aboard the Death Star to keep an eye on Tarkin. A man willing and able to wipe out an entire vital imperial base; how much more would he have been willing, and able, to destroy the emperor's palace or Coruscant itself without Vader there to ensure that the Grand Moff could not be a threat to the emperor himself?

The ego that Tarkin has must be massive. I don't think for a second that he's scared of Palpatine. He respects him, sure, but he takes the authority granted him by Palpatine very seriously and is the utmost confident that he's making the right decisions. That's my take anyway. Maybe I ought to read that novel, "Tarkin". Has anyone here read it?

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

Yes, I''ve read it. James Luceno is my favorite SW author, but unfortunately I found Tarkin to be something of a letdown. I found the scenes of Tarkin's training on his home planet of Eriadu to be tedious and the main plot wasn't that good and minimalist.